


Untitled Portal Game

by Bagge



Category: Portal (Video Game), Untitled Goose Game (Video Game)
Genre: A horrible goose - Freeform, Can Do Attitude, Gen, Humor, Lovely morning, Mayhem, Slapstic, Thinking with portals, honk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:55:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26582506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bagge/pseuds/Bagge
Summary: It's a lovely morning in the facility, and you are a horrible goose
Comments: 4
Kudos: 60





	Untitled Portal Game

**Author's Note:**

> Now you are honking with portals!

It was a lovely morning in the facility, and P-body was a good robot, performing their function, which was testing, together with their best friend Atlas under supervision of their boss, GLaDOS.

"You are a bad robot," GLaDOS said from the speakers. "You are very stupid and you will fail this test. Stupid robot."

P-body didn't mind GLaDOS' insults much. They were as much part of working at the Aperture testing facility as cleaning moon dust or dealing with strike threats from the nanobots. Just something that happened as part of the day.

P-body placed a blue portal at a ground-level panel and turned to find a sufficiently slated panel to place the other panel. Suddenly they realized, there was a sound behind them. They turned, and from the portal a noise was heard. A ... honk?

'That's strange,' P-body thought. 'Why is the portal active? I haven't placed the corresponding portal yet."

They did not have time to think any further, before another honk was heard, and through the portal an organism came waddling. It was large, feathery and moved with a confident swank, and P-body immediately thought it was the cutest thing they had ever seen.

P-body waved at Atlas and pointed at the cute organism, who waddled over to the wall and tried to interface with it. Atlas waved back and signed to P-body to place a portal where he stood. P-body did so, and was just about to place a corresponding portal in the wall when they realized that the organism had sneaked up on them.

“HONK,” honked the organism, and startled P-body so the portal gun jerked upwards, placing the portal in a ceiling pane instead. P-body had the decency to look ashamed when Atlas fell to the floor with a loud crash. They turned to the organism and tried to look stern.

"Bad, cute organism," they said. “Don’t scare me like that.” P-body held out their hand to the cute organism for it to interface with. P-body had seen once on an old poster that this was correct social protocol for organisms.

The organism looked at the hand, and then up at P-body's ocular unit and then down at the hand again. P-body started to feel rather silly. Suddenly, the neck shot out and a surprisingly strong beak grabbed hold of P-body's hand. Before they knew it, the organisms had waddled over to the other side of the test chamber, dragging P-body with it all the way. Taken completely by surprise, P-body let out a distress signal which caused the freshly re-assembled Atlas to come running to see what was going on.

"Let go, let go, let go, make it let go!" P-body cried, and the horrible organism finally let go and waddled over to peck at a Weighted Storage Cube instead. P-body looked despondently at their hand. A ball bearing was out of joint and at least two fiber modules had to be replaced. They held it up to Atlas for inspection. Atlas shook their head in sad recognition.

"Why did it do that?" P-body just shook their head, not up to the task of understanding the strange ways of organisms. Who knew what something in the habit of suddenly appearing in a testing chamber was capable of.

"What is it doing now?" Atlas went on, and they both turned around to look at the organism, which had by now moved the Weighted Storage Cube to the...

"Not the 1500 Megawatt Aperture Science Heavy Duty Super-Colliding Super Button!" P-body cried, but it was too late. The horrible organisms put the Weighted Storage Cube on the 1500 Megawatt Aperture Science Heavy Duty Super-Colliding Super Button, a series of lights lit up in a sequence to a dispenser just above Atlas and P-body and...

"Oh dear."

After their new robot bodies had been assembled, Atlas and P-body despondently went to pick up a bucket and a mop to start cleaning up the enormous quantity of gel that had crushed them. The organism was nowhere to be seen.

\- - -

"Right, gang," The personality core Wheatley, currently assigned to middle management, said to the assembled crew. "We seem to have a teensy-weensy contamination problem, but no fear. We can take care of it. Do you know why?"

Atlas and P-body - being the only members of the assembled crew - shook their heads.

"We can do it because we have something that the contaminating organism does not. We have a Can Do attitude. Er... Can everyone with a fist please shake it to show Can Do attitude?" Atlas and P-body dutifully complied.

"Now, we may be up against an adversary we don't understand and don't know what it is capable of. We might have to think outside the box. We might have to think inside the box. We might have to think of new ways of thinking of boxes altogether. But I think we can all agree that this situation should be given our full attention and be dealt with quickly... because I think we can all agree that we really don't need _her_ to learn about this mess.

Atlas and P-body nodded vigorously.

"Right. Glad we are all on the same page here. First up then, let's listen to a recorded message from management to be played in just this sort of situation."

"Cave Johnson here," came the rasping recorded voice from the loudspeaker. "Contingency message #14: Geese attacks. Here are some random geese facts. Geese are the most interesting birds in the world, measured in metric. They have a wingspan that out-weights that of a horse at least 5.3 times, if it is a small horse and a large goose. They were first discovered in the thirteenth century by a fellow with bad teeth. Their latin name is none of your business. If you take every atom in a goose and replace it with another atom, you'll have another goose. If you have six times ten to the power of 23 geese, you have a mole. Strange but true. Don't blame me, blame science. Cave Johnson, we're done here... Alright, let's do the next one. Give me a glass of water, thanks Caroline, you're a peach. Contingency message #15: World wide pandemic and/or murder hornets..."

The loud speaker crackled and went silent.

"Well then," Wheatley said brightly, "that was inspiring. Let's go out and ruffle some feathers."

\- - -

The goose was on unfamiliar ground. There were no trees, no ponds, no grass, no soft piano music. This didn't faze it much. When you are a horrible goose, you make your own familiar ground. It waddled through a darkly lit corridor in pursuit of mischief, and soon found it in the form of an electric cable sticking out from a side panel.

When it tugged on the cable with its beak, there was a sudden sound, or rather cessation of sound. A constant low humming that it had heard up to that point suddenly ceased, and several lights went out. A door, that up to that point had been very firmly closed, suddenly eased open. The goosed carefully stuck its neck in, and when it couldn't see anything in particular, waddled in to explore.

Thus it didn't see P-body sneaking up on it with a large net. It also didn't see Atlas sneaking up in the other direction with a sack.

Since the goose quickly waddled into the dark room, it also missed how P-body didn't catch it in the net, but instead caught Atlas. This in turned made Atlas' stumble on the sack so their head came loose and tumbled straight towards P-body.

"I'm big enough to admit it," Wheatley said from the railing, watching how Atlas and P-body went over the guard rail and fell down the chasm on the other side. "The first round goes to you, organism."

\- - -

The room was dark and smelled like mold. The goose carefully followed the wall until it had walked in a semi-circle and closed in on the entrance again. Then it turned its attention to the big, bulk contraption in the middle of the room. Ignoring the danger-signs and "strictly forbidden" notices, it dragged the tarp off. A spotlight lit up.

\- - -

"I'm glad to see we are all assembled again," Wheatley said to the assembled troups. "Bit of a snag, first time round. Not to worry. All we have to do is follow the strange organism into the dark, scary, forbidden room and try to capture it again. Piece of cake.... eh, sorry. Slip of my tounge... if I had one, which I don't... sorry."

Atlas and P-body looked at the door littered with warning signs. They looked at the dark, foreboding room on the other side. Neither of them moved.

\- - -

Under the tarp was a... contraption. It looked like someone had taken a large steel barrel and strapped a bunch of brushes and hoses on it. There was also a large warning triangle with a radioactivity symbol in it. But the goose didn't mind any of that. All it cared for was the large, peck-friendly and overall _inviting_ red button.

\- - -

"All right, I see your point. You made the first attempt. Time for middle management to have a go, eh? Time for ol' Wheatley to be the first one through the scary, forbidden door? That's... not unreasonable. That's... Actually reasonable, now when I say it out loud. So, I will just do so. I will just slide on the rail, through the forbidden, scary door, most likely to face my destruction in the hands of a horrible organism, but I will do so, and I will tell you why. I will do it because I believe in us. I believe in science. I believe in Aperture, and most importantly I believe in us as a team. CAN DO ATTITUDE!"

P-body and Atlas raised their fists.

Wheatley rushed forward on the rail, towards the door, and stopped abruptly with a little 'ding'.

"Oh, right. The rail doesn't reach there. Oh well, nothing for it. It has to be you guys. Can do attitude, eh?"

\- - -

The button was pressed, and the goose stood back to admire its handiwork. A satisfying 'whoooooooooom' indicated something high-power powering up. The brushes started to twitch. Water started to leak from a nozzle. A recorded voice started to speak.

"Tired of cleaning? Of course you are. Who wouldn't be? Why don't have a robot clean for you? The Spitfire Extra Clean Five hundred thousand and two. That's two better than the ol' Five hundred thousand they are peddling up in Detroit. Brushes made of titanium, powered by its very own reactor core. The continents can shift before this beauty stops cleaning. Automated grime-spotting technology. Cleans the filth before you know it's there. I hear the slide-rulers over in Sweden are working on a high pressure wash system. Joke's on them, we're totally stealing the idea, but we're doing it one better. Highest pressure in the world is in the bottom of the ocean, right? Lab people assure me that on the bottom of the Mariana trench, the pressure is high enough to pack a school of sardines in a can all by itself. Actually, that's a great idea. Caroline, patent that, we'll look into it later. Anyway, the pressure washer thing. We just slapped a trademarked Aperture science portal (TM) down there, and another in the nozzle. Water jet shoots through concrete. Best thing, this sucker doesn't run out of water anytime soon. Who is ready for some CLEANING? Not me, that's for sure. I've got a robot for that kind of thing now. Cave Johnson, we're done here."

The goose took another step back. The robot started to move towards the door.

\- - -

Atlas and P-body carefully moved towards the door. Something was definitely moving in there. They shared a quick glance and then, at the same time took a step forward towards the entrance. At the very same moment they were hit by a flood of water pushing them backwards and over the railing. On the flood sailed the organism, happily paddling in the small puddle that was forming and disappearing along the gangway with a happy HONK. Wheatley stared after it.

"You win the second round."

\- - -

The goose looked around the corner. It had left the flood and the rampaging cleaning robot behind and was now looking for new disruptions to case. It had wandered into what looked like a set of old dusty offices. It pecked experimentally on an office chair and a coffee mug, but no one seemed inclined to stop it so it quickly lost interest. An old computer that still displayed some dancing fraktal pattern seemed promising, but even that turned out to be less than satisfactory when a few pecks on the keyboard failed to produce the desired mayhem. The goose rounded a corner and came face to face with a freshly printed sign, that seemed suspiciously out of place in the dusty old office.

'ORGANISM TREATS THIS WAY,' it said, and an arrow pointed down the corridor. The goose waddled on in the indicated direction and soon came upon another sign.

"FOODSTUFF ORGANIC BEINGS LIKE TO EAT" said this one, and again an arrow pointed down the corridor.

The third sign was a rather larger-than-life drawing of a goose looking content, and letters simply saying "Yum, yum." The arrow pointed around the corner. The goose dutifully waddled on.

The goose stopped for a moment to quizzically regard a cardboard box that was propped up by a stick. Underneath it was a plate with what looked like a delicious chocolate cake. The goose regarded the cake for a few moments, then looked at the stick, and then without warning started to run under the box, grabbed the the plate and dragged it with it until it emerged on the other end just as Wheatley cried "NOW!"

P-body tugged the string tied to the stick, just as Atlas tried to grab the goose, with the result that Atlas got stuck under the box instead.

"HONK," honked the goose and dragged the plate down the hallway.

"Follow that organism," cried Wheatley and followed ineffectively from the rail. P-body dashed after the goose and would probably have caught it if they didn't manage to step in the cake and fell over, crashing into Atlas who just managed to free itself from the cardboard box. They both fell over in a pile of components and body parts that would be quite complicated to sort out. Wheatley watched the goose waddle down the corridor, beak smeared in chocolate frosting.

"Third round goes to you, organism. But just you wait."

\- - -

The goose had found its way to the turret testing facility. It regarded a turret standing just in front of it, not quite sure what to make of it.

"Honk?" it said.

"Hello?" said the turret.

"Honk," said the goose.

"Is anyone there?" said the turret.

"Honk!" said the goose.

"I see you," said the turret.

"Honk???" said the goose, but that had less to do with the turret, and more to do with the orange ellipse that had just appeared under it. Before the goose had time to figure out what it all meant, the ellipse changed texture and what had a moment ago been solid floor suddenly turned into empty air. The goose fell through the portal with a last, surprised 'hooooooonk'.

"Goodbye," said the turret.

\- - -

"Well done team," Wheatley said. "I think I speak for all of us when I say that we can all feel proud of what we have accomplished today. Can do attitude, am I right? Of course I'm right."

Atlas and P-body raised their fists.

They stood around (or in Wheatley's case above) a wooden crate in the middle of the room. It was labelled 'Organic Waste, Don't Open' and it was very thoroughly nailed shut.

"We faced an unknown situation, we bested a horrible creature and best of all..."

Behind Wheatley, a large screen lit up and the face of GLaDOS suddenly filled the room.

"...we did it before _she_ found out."

"WHAT HAVE YOU MORONS DONE TO MY FACILITY?"

"...bugger."

\- - -

"...we are behind with the testing quota with 39 percent units, test chamber 403 is destroyed and the lower corridors are full with _fish_. Some of them have _lights_ on their heads."

"...now in our defense..."

"And all because of what? An _organism_? No serial number, no port compatibility, a CPU made of _meat_."

"...if I may just..."

"Instead of solving the situation with science you just... scramble around and try any old idea until something sticks. Do you call that science?"

"Perhaps it would be better if..."

_"Do you call that science?"_

"...of course not."

"And just what am I supposed to do with this.... organism?"

Everyone's eyes turned to the crate again. Atlas and P-body shared an uncertain glance. GLaDOS glared at the crate. Wheatley bobbed back and forth on his rail. In the end, it was Wheatley who broke the silence.

"...testing?"

\- - -

"Are you sure this will work?"

"Of course it will work. The entire facility is built for organic testing, isn't it. No offense." The last was an aside to Atlas and P-body. Wheatley went on.

"It's a very basic test to begin with. Just a basic Cube-Button-Door combo, what we call a 'CBD' in the trade. Look, here comes the cube." A dispenser dispensed a Weighted Storage Cube just next to the 1500 Megawatt Aperture Science Heavy Duty Super-Colliding Super Button.

"Aaaaaaand here comes the organism." A trap door opened and the crate, now with the lid only loosely put on, was elevated on a platform into the testing chamber. 

Everyone held their breath. They always did since neither of them breathed, but now they were engaged in that sort of silent anticipation that would be associated with holding one's breath if they had been organisms. 

The crate remained closed.

"Um..."

"Good for testing, you said."

"No, no, I'm sure it's just shy. Um... give it a minute."

A minute passed.

"Perhaps someone needs to... give the crate a little push so to speak. And with someone I hasten to add that I mean 'someone with hands.'"

"There is no need for hands at all!"

\- - - 

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!"

The goose, who had slept quite well in the crate, was rudely awoken by a crash, as if a personality core had been released from its rail and hurled into the testing chamber on collision course with the crate and was now helplessly rolling back and forth on the floor.

"HONK," said the goose as it waddled out of the crate to see what new kind of games it could play with the core.

"There, I see it now," said GLaDOS over the loudspeaker. "It's large and it's feathery and it's... BIRD! BIRD, IT'S A BIRD! RUN FOR THE HILLS. EVACUATE THE CHAMBER. HIDE THE POTATOES! ABORT THE TESTING!"

Atlas and P-body looked at her in shock and she quickly walked back the last statement.

"I mean.... continue the testing. Just keep an eye on the devil-bird and make sure it doesn't escape. And someone get that moron away from the button." In the chamber, the goose had happily dragged Wheatley over to the 1500 Megawatt Aperture Science Heavy Duty Super-Colliding Super Button, and as the door opened the goose slipped down the elevator shaft to find more mischief. P-body silently held up their hand to Atlas for a rock-paper-scissor challenge. They didn't need to say which job the loser had to do.

\- - -

"You are fat."

The goose looked over the edge. The ground was very far away.

"And stupid and... Adopted? Can a bird be adopted?"

The goose looked at the exit, tantalizingly placed just on the other side of the chasm. It spread its wings.

"And... did I already mention fat? And... HEY, it's flying? Can it do that? It's not allowed to solve the test by flying. That’s not scientific. Stop it, stupid bird! BIRDS ARE NOT SCIENTIFIC!"

But the goose had already left the chamber.

\- - - 

"It's very simple. Speedy things go in, speedy things go out. You just place one portal in the floor and one on the wall and... hey, stop that!"

The goose perked up. The portal gun had been specially adapted to a harness around it, and a specific neural activity recognition detector set up to trigger it. There had been some false starts, some of them rather spectacular, but now it finally had got the hang of the gun by destroying GLaDOS' security camera. The goose felt good about this new development. It could certainly see the benefits of thinking with portals.

"I don't believe it! You are finally getting the hang of it. One portal in the floor, one in the wall. Floor, wall, floor wall, wait, not through the crack. That panel is not part of the testing chamber. That will take you to the rest of the facility. Stop it, stop!"

But with one last 'Honk' the goose waddled through the portal and was gone. GLaDOS sighed. Organisms were nothing but trouble.

\- - -

"Well, little setback, that" Wheatley said, bobbing back and forth on the railing. "The devil bird is now equipped with portal technology and loose in the facility. Nothing else to it, let's put the team back together, eh? And I assume you all know what that means?"

P-body and Atlas shook their heads.

"Team building exercise! I have printed matching t-shirts.... Although mine is more of a bandana. Can I hear... Can Do spirit?”

Two fists were raised in silence.

\- - - 

They finally got it back into the testing chambers, but that was hardly an improvement. Half of the time, the annoying bird found a way to finish the test in a way none of them had anticipated, ruining the mood for everyone. The other half, it found a way to slip out and they had to chase it down again. It found places to place portals that had earlier been thought to be impossible. It did things with the gels that were simply not done in polite company. And then there was the thing with the lasers...

\- - -

The goose was quite happy with this new kind of cube. It was shiny, and the goose _liked_ shiny. It dragged it over to the laser and carefully put it in the beam. The goose _really_ liked the mayhem that ensued.

One of the funny radio-humans it had met came running towards it. The goose deftly moved the cube and placed the laser beam straight into its chest, causing it to tumble over the ledge. Then it pointed the beam at the crack between two panels and a muted explosion was heard. Apparently, this short circuited some of the controls for the room, because one of the panels of the floor was replaced with some kind of catapult plate. The goose gingerly stepped on it, and was delighted to realize that it suddenly had jumped high up in the air. It pointed the portal gun downwards and picked a spot. This was going to be fun.

\- - - 

Exasperated, GLaDOS watched the mayhem. Now the horrible bird had found the Aerial Faith Plates. It bounced up and down like a... like some kind of bouncing organism. She had to do something.

"Nobody likes you," she snarled at the bird. "You don't have any friends. You are a... friendless no-friend, that's who you are." The goose actually stopped at that, and looked up at the camera, pondered for a moment and answered with a wistful 'HONK'.

"Yes, that's right," GLaDOS pressed on, glad to finally have found a way to get to the irritating avian. "You are too stupid, and dumb, and.... eh... feathery to have any frie... eh?"

"HONK!"

From behind a panel, a second long neck snaked out, a second set of beady eyes looked over the testing chamber and a second beak honked. The first goose honked in recognition, and the two revolting birds waddled up to greet each other, honking all the way.

"Rather charming," Wheatley observed. GLaDOS glared at him. In the testing chambers, the two geese found a crack in the panels and slipped out on the factory floor together.

\- - -

It was much later. Much, much later. P-body was nervous. Not because they had a staff meeting - P-body was used to those. Middle management usually called two or three staff meetings a week to discuss things like changes to procedural documents of value norms or who had forgot to put on a new pot of coffee in the break room (no one drank coffee anymore since the human staff had been downsized, but rules were rules) - but because of who had called it.

It was rare to see upper management itself take an interest, and it never boded well.

"Hello everyone," GLaDOS said, towering over them from the ceiling. "I am glad to inform everyone that _I_ have finally dealt with the bird situation, and I am not very happy with how any of you performed." P-body shivered, and Atlas huddled closer for comfort.

"I expect all of you to do twice as much science this month to fill up the quota, and I think I speak for all of us when I from now on declare this facility a goose-free zone."

A panel lit up, showing a stylized goose silhouette, crossed with a red "No"-stripe. P-body and Atlas nodded. It was probably for the best.

"If there are no questions..."

"Um, yeah, sorry. Just one little clarification," Wheatley - who had never mastered the art of understanding when to shut up - interjected. "So glad to hear that the current situation has been dealt with, but, um... just out of idle curiosity... what did you do with the geese?"

"Oh, I found a parsimonious solution," GLaDOS said with a decidedly smug tone of voice

\- - -

It was a drone. Chell could only stare at it in disbelief. She had escaped the facility, trekked all this way, lived of what the land gave and the robots STILL found a way to annoy her. The drone bobbed up and down in the air, a bit uncertain.

"Er, so sorry to bother you," the drone droned. "Respect your privacy and all that. It's' only that we..." it lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper" And with that I mean _she_ wanted to ask for your input on a little problem we have encountered..."

The drone's voice trailed off. Chell crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.

"Er... A rather large problem, actually... And with your input, we think... I mean _she_ said just to make it your problem instead. Er... it's a very organic problem so it should be right in your ballpark, being organic and all. Er... sorry about all this, anyway, byeeeeee."

With a last apologetic bob up and down, the drone dropped a crate in front of her and buzzed off.

Chell moved to step in between the crate and the Companion Cube. She eyed the crate suspiciously as it started to shake, and the lid opened just a crack.

"HONK!"


End file.
